Hip Hop Caucus Moblizing National Team For Voting Rights

Reverend Lennox Yearwood and the Hip Hop Caucus are calling Congress to act immediately to reverse actions of the Supreme Court earlier this week. Specifically, Yearwood wants Congress to enacts a new statute which reactivates the essential preclearence provisions of the VRA that the Supreme Court effectively gutted.

Says Yearwood of the decision: “The Supreme Court’s out-of-touch decision in Shelby County v. Holder ignores the fact that Congress has clear constitutional authority to protect voters’ rights from racial discrimination. The evidence is overwhelming that racial discrimination in the voting process continues today in states and jurisdictions around the country. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, have leveled a major setback to our most fundamental right, the right to vote.

The Voting Rights Act is what people fought and died for half a century ago, and it is unfathomable that in 2013, just seven years after Congress re-authorized VRA, five Supreme Court justices would undo this landmark law that has served as an essential protector of our democracy, and continues to be necessary today.”